


Soldiers, Spies, Sentiments, and Lies

by just_a_dram



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Duty, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Loyalty, Marriage of Convenience, Pining, Revolutionary War, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-25 16:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30092190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_a_dram/pseuds/just_a_dram
Summary: A Loyalist Brigade is raised on Long Island with Lt. Col. Jon Snow in command of one of the battalions. Sansa, a secret Patriot living in Tory territory, isn’t sure whether to keep her distance or whether he might prove to be the best cover of all.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 63
Kudos: 190





	1. The Raising of the Brigade

**Author's Note:**

> I’m a professor of history. A professor of _medieval history_. I teach U.S. history, but I genuinely feel like I know just enough to be dangerous here, lol. Having attended university in Williamsburg, I know a lot more about colonial Virginia and the south. But I wanted a Loyalist vs. Patriot storyline, and while Tories existed throughout the colonies, they were most heavily concentrated in New York and South Carolina. I don’t want to touch plantation life with a ten-foot pole (fyi, brief mention of slavery in opening and second chapters). So, New York it is! Yes, this has a TURN kind of feel to it. It’s an aesthetic. Uniforms and stays. It's a vibe. Historical accuracy be damned potentially. Hope you enjoy!

Sansa expects to know at least a few of the boys in uniform, their ranks primarily being raised from amongst locals. The one who stops her, however, when she stands before the white paneled door, adjusting the grey shawl that hangs between her arms, is wholly unfamiliar to her. He is neither from the western side of the island, where she grew up, or from one of the neighboring villages here on the eastern end. He is a stranger and one with a musket and a uniform to give him authority over the free movement of her person.

This is precisely what their New England neighbors object to, she thinks, as she sets her face to pleasant neutrality—or rather, pleasant loyalty to King George.

“What is your business here, ma’am?” he demands, blocking her way up the stairs to the door with a clank of his weapon as he sidesteps.

“I am the lieutenant colonel’s kin—Madam Lannister. _Sansa_ Lannister. He’ll want to see me presently.” She looks down at the woven basket hung on her arm, its contents covered by a generous square of unbleached linen. “I’ve brought Colonel Snow a gift to welcome him back to our shores. Preserves, bread, my famous ginger cakes, salted ham,” she says, carefully listing the contents like a good little industrious widow.

And has she been busy in the interim. It has been years. She has been wed and widowed—to her great luck—since last she saw her cousin.

After his being orphaned, Jon came to live with her family. Jon's mother was Ned Stark's only sister, and he was embraced as a much-loved son by most within the household. When Jon came of age, however, he returned to the northern part of the colony, from whence his father’s family hail. Not having a claim to the Stark farm, it was a better thing for him to seek his fortunes elsewhere. Last she heard, he was serving as a sheriff, but she never paid much attention to reports of her cousin after he left them. They had not been particularly close. Not like he was with Robb.

The wind pulls several strands of her hair free of her cap, whipping them across her face in a red blur, as the soldier, who can’t count many more years than her, looks from her basket and then into her face, scrutinizing her. He thinks himself important.

“The colonel is very busy.”

“I’m Have no doubt of it. We’re so very fortunate to have your protection now that the brigade is being raised.”

That sits better with him and his shoulders settle some, as he stares down at her.

“Then you understand. Come back another time, mistress.”

“I don’t mean any bother. Just a moment of his time. We grew up together as children, you see,” she says, eyes flicking to another green coated soldier crossing the yard, approaching them over the yellowing grass of September with a sure step.

Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the slant of the cutting morning sun, she squints at the soldier to determine if she might know this one. It’s hard to say. They all look the same at a distance, thanks to their new uniforms.

With a hand raised in greeting, he shouts to her, “Mistress Lannister.”

Though she is unaccustomed to being shouted at in public spaces, her lips turn up. She knows that young voice, which not so long ago could not make up its mind whether to turn deep or not. Of all her neighbors here, his voice is one of those she doesn’t dread. She swings the basket around to rest against the other hip, lifting her hand to wave back at him.

She might have better luck now, gaining entrance to Jon’s makeshift office of command, for she’s never known Podrick not to try to be of some assistance, when it was needed. He’s a boy to be proud of, but his mother ran off when he was a child, shaming the family, and his father died fighting the French. There is no one left to be properly proud of the man he is becoming, which is a real shame. Perhaps Jon will recognize his worth: he isn't the sort to fail to see someone's ability due to unfortunate family connections.

The oyster shells crunch under his boots, as he comes to a stop beside her, inclining his head.

She dips a quick curtsey, though Podrick is not quite her social equal. It does no good to act too proud, considering her position as a Stark.

“Morning, Podrick. I had not heard you had enlisted.”

“Yes, it seemed the thing to do.”

“Well done,” she says, though she suffers the same dreadful vision Robb’s enlistment conjured in her mind of blood and mud. All these young men might be cut down in the prime of their youth, fighting for one side or the other. “I was just saying that I’m here to see Colonel Snow. He and I are cousins and were raised together on the western end of the island.”

“I didn’t know there was a relation,” Podrick says with the same slightly awkward smile he always casts her way.

“Yes, well, I haven’t seen him in some time and am eager to as you might expect,” she says, fumbling with the shawl, whose one end flaps violently, threatening to dislodge itself from her shoulders in the stiff breeze.

Podrick’s hand darts out to help her adjust it, but pulls back just as quickly, no doubt thinking better of touching her without leave.

“I’ll take Mistress Lannister in to see the colonel, Grenn,” he says, clearing his throat.

 _Grenn_. Sansa tucks this information away, so that next she meets him, she can greet him by name. She won’t soon forget the face. He is remarkably tall and his neck is so thick that his jacket collar looks as if it might cut into the flesh should he move too quickly. If he can move quickly at all. He's as big as an ox.

“It’ll be your hide. Colonel Snow doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

“But for family? That’s different,” Podrick says, already taking a step up the stone stairs. He gestures to her. “Come along, mistress. I’ll show you inside.”

Though he was attempting to thwart her, spares a smile for Grenn, as she steps up past him. Regardless of how she’s treated, it is always best to remain accommodating and courteous. No one suspects a female of impeccable manners and good carriage. Moreover, if she needs his help some other time, he might remember her smiles and grant it.

“It will gladden his heart to see your face,” Podrick says, seizing the doorknob. “Has he been absent from home long?”

“Three years,” Sansa supplies, though she can’t swear to it.

It might have been longer. Her memory of his leave-taking is painfully indistinct. Did she even bother to say goodbye when he left? Wish him well? She doesn’t remember.

She fists her shawl tightly, waiting for Podrick to swing the door wide for her. If she was cool, when they parted, Jon might not be glad of her. Though she remembers him as kind and good, he was also quick to feel a slight. With good reason, of course, for his father had not wed Lyanna Stark, even when she ended up with child. He could not: Jon’s father was already married. Sansa’s mother considered it a dubious distinction to be saddled with a bastard child, and while she was never cruel, Sansa can see now how Jon must have been cognizant of the scorn he was held in by some both in and outside of the family.

“I can’t imagine being away so long,” Podrick says, as she steps around him into the doorway.

Indeed, Podrick has probably hardly ever left the village of his birth. The furthest he has ever gone is likely York City if someone thought to take him along on a trip there. He has never had cause to be sent from home, not like Jon.

She tries to conjure Jon’s face in her memory to prepare herself, though he will be altered by time. They were never close, and yet, it ought to be a friendly face, a welcome one, when she has suffered at Joffrey’s hands and his family’s and in his village, since he died in agony of smallpox at the outset of the violence in Massachusetts. She’s been alone here with Bran and Rickon in her care, since Mother’s passing from the same, without another person to lay her cares upon.

For all of those reasons, it ought to be a relief to have Jon in the village, but when her father died on that prison ship and they seized their family farm in retaliation for Robb running off to join the Continental Army, Sansa privately committed herself to a cause at odds with Jon’s uniform.

She hates Cersei Lannister. But she hates the British more. She can’t drive them from their shores the way Robb hopes to, but she can do her part.

With her shadowy blue skirts brushing against Podrick’s shins and the inside door jamb, she twists to fit through the doorway alongside her basket, looking down as she steps over the wide threshold made uneven by wear. The scrape of a chair over the worn wooden floor pulls her gaze up. He’s there. On his feet. Different and yet looking more a Stark than Robb or the boys.

Podrick doesn’t get out who he’s brought to see the colonel before Jon’s moving around his walnut campaign desk, his hand dragging through his dark curls, the ends pulled back in a neat queue. Tall, lean, and unexpectedly handsome in his green and white-faced uniform, he strides across the space, one arm already extending towards her. Her hammering heart propels her forward in a quick one-two step into his arms, hard enough that his solid body thuds into hers, and then his arms are around her, wrapped so tight it robs her of breath. He adjusts his hold on her frame, fingers pressing through the cotton of her gown, and she does the same, wrapping her arms about his waist and neck, clinging. He leans back, the action pulling her nearly off her feet with no weight substantially left on the tips of her toes.

No great actor, her plain-speaking cousin is as glad of her as she is of him. This is no exhibition, no falsehood, and it is so very sweet to see him, to be encircled in his embrace. She gasps against the sharp stab of joy and sadness and relief, and his arms wind tighter, as though he might pull her right inside his chest. She thought that time and distance and the difference in their allegiances would steal the sweetness from this meeting, but it doesn’t. It collapses her chest and makes her heart climb in her throat. She turns her face into his neck, relishing the gratefulness that overwhelms her.

She has given comfort. She comforts Bran and Rickon, when they cry for Mother. She comforted Joffrey’s slaves after he exploded at them, terrifying them with his threats of beatings and sale on the block on Wall Street. She even tried to comfort Joffrey, when he was burning with fever, though his mother claims she didn’t do enough and is to be blamed for his death.

But there has been no one to comfort her. A part of her past is suddenly restored to her, when she has lost so much, and she buries her fingers in the glossy thickness of his hair above his queue to be sure it isn't all an illusion to be stripped away.

It isn't only affection that soothes her soul. Even though he is the wrong type of authority, supporting the side she works against, in his sharp tailored uniform with a desk and men ready and willing to do his bidding, he seems capable and strong like someone she could count on, when there has been no one but herself.

With her cheek pressed to his neck, he smells of wool and powder, as if they have been training this early morning.

It’s men like the soldiers in Jon’s battalion, who might someday fire upon Robb. Jon, who won’t yet know what Robb has done, wouldn’t want to be opposite him on a battlefield. It’s like this, the war, dividing families, tearing them apart.

His mouth brushes where her hair is pulled up, as he draws back, setting her down flat on her feet. Her knees are weak, balance shaken, and he claps his hands on her shoulders, steadying her. He looks on her with such kindness, the kindness she has been without, and she feels tears threaten to spill forth.

“Your father,” he says, brows drawing together.

 _Father_. She can’t hardly think on him. She’s buried it deep, the idea of him being sent in shackles to what would prove to be his death on account of her mistake.

“I’m sorry, Sansa.”

“It wasn’t true,” she whispers fiercely, because whatever Ned Stark’s children have become, he was no traitor to the king.

Her father’s misfortune wasn’t even being a Quaker, who could not abide military service. His great misfortune was having a daughter, who over delicate embroidery, spoke idly in the presence of her husband’s vengeful mother on things she ought to have kept to herself.

She didn’t know. She trusted her mother-in-law. She was a fool to do so.

“Of course, it wasn’t,” he says, as she bites her lip to fight the welling tears. “Your father was a good man.”

 _Robb is good too_.

“Now I’m here, no one will accuse good men and good women of treason without real cause. You’re safe, Sansa.”

But she _is_ a traitor. A real one.

He gestures towards his desk, where a chair awaits her, should she choose to take it and indulge in the pleasure of his company, stretching out this welcome comfort of being known. “Come, sit, please. I didn’t know you were still here. I would have come to visit you directly when I was given this post, but I assumed you removed back home to be among friends after the death of—”

“The farm was seized. There is nothing to go home to.”

He stops short, face gone blank with shock. Indeed, it’s hard for Sansa to picture it, some other family in their home, the timbers cut by her ancestors, other people working the land, where they raised sheep and grew cabbage, Jon and Robb and her father working shoulder to shoulder. The land might have been sold and divided already, since she fetched Bran and Rickon back with her, lost forever.

“That can’t be right,” he says with a stiff shake of his head.

But rather than explain why the farm was taken from the Starks, original settlers of this island, in front of the two soldiers flanking the door and Podrick, who hangs back, she attempts to resume a more cheerful aspect to dismiss the painful topic at hand. It is dangerous, reminding people of her family’s questionable loyalties and her brother and sister’s flagrant acts of defiance. She swears one of the two soldiers shuffled on his feet, as if he had a thought or two to share with the colonel, when she spoke of the seizure. Then again, she has grown leery about what people think of her and her family. She may have imagined it.

“There’s much to discuss, but I don’t wish for you to neglect your duties this morning. You must be terribly busy organizing a defense.”

“Yes, I—” he turns, looks towards his desk and then back, his face still disordered from the news.

“Although, the magistrate assures us we are perfectly safe,” she says in bright cheerfulness.

“Your father-in-law?”

“Yes, Tywin Lannister.”

His eyes cut over her shoulder at the men. He is schooling his countenance to be unreadable. He will need to work with her father-in-law and it wouldn't do for people to know Jon disputed his conclusions. But she’s known Jon nearly her whole life, and she can see he doesn’t think much of the magistrate’s assessment.

Jon is right to be concerned, for there is talk that reached her of organizing raids across the sound in whaleboats. Jon couldn’t be aware of that. It must be his cautious nature, which causes him to doubt their safety on the British stronghold of Long Island. A wise position to take, considering.

“I have brought you some provisions,” she says, bringing the basket around to her front and pulling aside the linen to reveal the contents.

Tucked inside is a letter, written in language she hoped would help win him to her side, providing her with a pretext for continued respectability in a village where Patriots already fled for Connecticut or military service. She almost regrets it was written with deceit in mind now that the mere brush of his hand against hers as he moves to accept the basket twists something in her chest.

With both their hands wrapped around the handle of her basket, their eyes meet. He was not yet this tall, when he left home.

He sighs and looks once more to the men behind her.

Whatever he wants to say, he keeps to himself, settling instead on something harmless. “Your preserves were the finest in the village.”

“The finest here as well,” Podrick pipes up from behind them.

“Gentlemen are obliged to say as much to a lady bearing a basket, but I have plenty more if you’ll come by my husband’s house, Jon. Any day of your choosing. The boys would be so happy to see you—Bran and Rickon. They are here too.”

Warmth crinkles his eyes. “I would like that very much. It’s been too long.”

He was always so fond of her younger siblings, especially Arya. What would he think of her running off?

She folds her hands before her. “Yes, good. Pray, where are you billeted?”

He sets the basket atop the desk, answering with his back turned, “Councilman Tarly’s home.”

It’s for the best that his back is to her, for she knows her face pinches at the name.

“Oh yes, of course. Do share the basket with the family. I have not had the pleasure of sitting with Meleesa or Talla of late. Their home is quite spacious. Very comfortable, I'm sure.”

They are suspicious of her, Meleesa, the girls, the same as so many others. False friends all of them. She picks at the fringe on her shawl with a nervous twitch. Talla will be pleased to have a colonel staying in their home, no doubt. Especially a handsome one.

“It is most comfortable, yes.”

“You’ll remember me to them, please, but I do have to go, I’m afraid. My chores are not as vital as your sworn duty, but they are still pressing.”

A flicker of something passes over his face. Something akin to disappointment, though she suspects she feels that more keenly than he does. It might only be the remains of the shock she dealt him in coming here unannounced, when he believed her back at home.

“Yes, of course. Thank you. For this,” he says, looking down at the basket, “and coming to see me.”

“Yes, I couldn’t delay. Your arriving here was the best sort of news.”

She can see how her words unsettle him, how he shifts on his feet and tucks his hands behind his back, pulling himself back together, as his face settles into that solemn frown she remembers.

“Any time you have need of me, Sansa, the men will know to see you in. I’ll be sure of that. And I promise to be round to see you as well.”

She hopes he will and soon. Not only because it would be a useful cover, having the battalion’s colonel appear to be her friend, but also because it would be nice, so very nice to be alone with him without observers looking on, so they might speak on things from the past. She would truly like to be his friend, however difficult their circumstances might make it. The fact that her chest flutters at the thought of being secure in his friendship is proof she is still very foolish, in spite of everything.

“I’d like that, _Lieutenant Colonel Snow_. That sounds very fine, as fine as you look in your uniform.” His face flushes, and she reaches out to brush the cuff of his sleeve with her fingertips. “It is so good to see you. Take care.”


	2. The House on the Sound

With a glance at the maps of the area gathered for its defense and a set of rambling directions given by Podrick, who was raised in the village and was clearly known to Sansa, Jon finds his way on foot to Sansa’s home before the sun has set one evening, his reports being done for the day.

It has nearly been a week since she appeared in his office. The first day, he lost considerable time, his mind being continually drawn back to her presence in the village, how she’d changed, and how she seemed to have a heaviness about her in spite of her attempts at cheerfulness. His thoughts also drifted to the rest of the Stark family, including those members he would never see again. Mistress Stark, who died of smallpox the same as Sansa’s husband, whose death must have been a terrible blow to Sansa and the younger Stark children; and his uncle, whose unjust death demonstrates most keenly how it is not merely rebels who act in haste and fury. Robb might be lost to him too if this war does not end and end with as little spilling of blood as possible.

Since that day, Jon has managed to direct himself more diligently to his duties, but Sansa is never far from his thoughts, especially in quiet moments, when he closes his bedroom door in the Tarly home and is enveloped by silence. Yesterday, he intended on finally making his way to see her, but there was an incident at the tavern involving one of his men, which he needed to deal with speedily. It would not do to garner ill-will among the people of this village or the rest of the island. The greatest difficulty of this war will not be the outcome of campaigns. The difficulty will be in convincing people to want to be subjects of the king again, for after the armies go home, the real business of living as members of the empire will commence once more. Any wrong step endangers that outcome even among the loyal subjects of this island.

Coming over the hedge by the road, her house rises up in front of him. Though this is the back view of the house, the white shingled abode is clearly one of the finer ones in the village. The house, which belonged to Joffrey Lannister, who Sansa married after Jon had already left for the north, is close to the shore. It faces out towards the water, well positioned for access by a boat. Close enough that he can smell the water, its mix of salt and fresh, briny and by this time of year, vaguely fishy. It’s a quick walk from the road to the back of the house, for there’s no substantial farm surrounding the house. There’s a scattering of fruit trees, the usual kitchen garden, and a stable for horse and carriage and a lone cow, as well as a handful of chickens that scatter, when he crosses through their yard.

Rather than farming the land, growing British and Indian corn, or raising pigs and sheep like many of their neighbors, the Lannisters are in trade in the West Indies. Everyone knows what that means. For most of the Dutch descendants like Sansa’s mother’s family and even the Congregationalists who settled the eastern end of the island, there’s no harm in it; it’s all in the pursuit of profits and as God intended. Indeed, the evil trade has brought the Lannister family substantial wealth, but Robb’s letters to Jon conveyed Ned Stark distaste for Joffrey’s family’s connections, which is not surprising considering Ned's views. His uncle would have preferred Sansa married into some other family.

Jon thinks Ned had the right of it. The Quakers had been debating amongst themselves for decades whether or not to allow slavery in their own communities. Those who were against the institution, such as his uncle, argued it was immoral and unchristian and demanded their brethren cut ties with the trade. It is a difficult argument to make among the Friends on Long Island, however. So many are connected in some way. Even the salted fish sold by humble island fishermen ends up being shipped in barrels to feed sugar plantation slaves in the West Indies. It’s a nasty business.

While nearly every family on the island has at least a slave or two and the wealthy a dozen, the Starks worked the land themselves. Who farms it now, Jon doesn’t know, but with what authority he has, he will find out. Something will be done to restore the farm that is rightfully theirs.

A face appears in one of the first floor windows and then another just below it, and before he gets to the top of the hill, Rickon explodes out of the house’s back door with a whoop that makes Jon grin harder than he has in years. The youngest Stark tears down the steps, Bran a few paces behind, leaning on his crutch. They shout his name in near unison, and he pulls his hat from his head just as Rickon crashes into him with an audible _oof_. The lad is big enough that Jon rocks back from the force. That wouldn’t have been the case four years ago.

Jon can’t hold back a laugh, in spite of the bubble of regret for the thief of time. They’re both so much bigger, Bran with the lanky frame of a boy on the verge of manhood, Rickon with no signs of babyhood lingering about his face. He has missed a great deal in the intervening years.

It is the same with Sansa. Such a pretty girl, proper and promising, when he left, and now a stunningly beautiful but sad woman.

“You’re growing like weeds,” he says, face hurting from the spread of his smile, as he tousles Rickon’s mop of hair, which is near as pretty as his sister’s. “You being good for your sister?”

“Yes, sir,” Rickon says grinning up at him.

His teeth are too big for his smile and the twinkle in his blues eyes spells trouble. Jon expects Rickon gives Sansa plenty of it.

“Is that right?” he says, rubbing his knuckles over Rickon’s scalp. “Is your sister home?”

“Yes, she’s inside,” Bran says, angling his head back. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“You won’t have to wait so long next time. I’ve filled the ranks. That was the pressing issue at least.”

Now he has only to manage them and train them up into something resembling a useful battalion. Easier said than done based on what he's seen so far.

Jon glances around the yard, which shows signs of requiring some management as well. Though there isn’t much of a farm, he’d expect to see someone out here at work, there always being something that needs doing. The kitchen garden beside the separate kitchen house appears to be in a state, more so than just the usual end of the season untidiness.

Slinging his arm around Rickon’s bony shoulders, he walks over the bare patch of lawn, all the green worn away in a path from the back door of the house to the chicken yard.

“Come here,” he says, reaching the step where Bran has stopped, waiting, so he doesn’t have to climb back up unnecessarily.

Poor child. When he was small, he wanted so badly to be a soldier before his accident. He was never without a tiny row of tin soldiers, shouting orders and firing canon.

Bending Bran’s ginger head towards his shoulder, he pulls him in. “How are you, my boy?”

Bran’s answering smile is the same, though he looks like a colt with his limbs too long.

“You’re not too old to give your favorite cousin a hug, are you?”

“No. Have you come to stay?”

He pounds Bran on the back. “Wouldn’t that be nice? Afraid I’m staying with the Tarlys. Do you know them?”

“No,” Rickon says, hopping up the stairs and grabbing for the door. “We hate it here. No one is nice.”

Jon looks cockeyed at Bran for a level-headed contradiction of his brother’s assertion, but Bran nods sullenly. “The worst is Mr. Baelish.”

“I can’t stand the sight of him,” Rickon agrees.

“I tread on his foot with my crutch and pretended it was an accident.”

Rickon snickers. “I think he knew, but he didn't let on because of Sansa.”

“Baelish,” Jon says, as Rickon throws the door open so wide it shudders violently. “ _Careful_ , you’ll pull it off its hinges. That name is familiar. _Baelish_.”

“He was married to Mother’s sister.” The answer comes floating from inside, as Sansa appears in the doorway, arms behind her, working to untie an apron from about her waist.

Jon nods, tucking his hat against his chest, while he pauses for Bran to swing himself over the threshold. She smiles back in a shy way that makes him look down at the toes of his boots. Sansa was never shy. Certainly not with him.

Time does strange things.

“You’ve come. I told you they’d be glad.”

He reaches out to straighten the back of Bran’s collar. “I would have been here yesterday but I was detained.”

“Yesterday you would have met with Mister Baelish,” Sansa says, as he steps through into the back of the long hallway that runs the length of the house from the front entry to this rear door, once more glancing around himself.

There are no sounds in the house, save for here in the hall. No feet upon the stairs, no voices. A house this big shouldn’t be this silent.

“He was the only person I knew besides Joffrey, when I came here. Or rather, the only person who knew me.”

He watches her fold her lace edged apron in thirds, her elegant fingers, which used to entertain them at the pianoforte, moving deftly.

Rickon darts as if to run away and she grabs him by the sleeve, halting him with a stutter of feet. “You should have brought Jon in through the front. He’s not a servant.”

“We’re family,” Jon assures her, and she releases Rickon with a quirk of her brow. “I came up from the back anyway.”

He lifts his black cocked hat to indicate the road behind them, as Rickon begins to bounce beside him, eager to say something.

“I know,” he finally says, going up on his toes. “I spotted you when you were down in the lane. I saw you first.”

Jon wonders whether he is ever still. He never was when he was very small. No matter how he’s grown, it seems as if very little has changed in that regard.

“That’s because you had your nose pressed to the window and not in your book. They’ve been watching for you ever since I brought home word of you,” Sansa says with an affectionate shake of her head. “I’ll put on some tea if you have time enough to stay.”

“I have no engagements,” he says, as she sets the apron down on the table beneath the angled backside of the staircase. She wears no sleeve ruffles, neither lace or plain. They’ve been removed, which means he has interrupted her in the midst of her chores. It doesn’t seem as if there is anyone here but the three of them. No one to help her with this considerable house and small yard. “But don’t put yourself out on my account.”

“We have no slaves. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?” she asks, brushing her hands together.

He thought his surprise at their situation better concealed. “Joffrey didn’t keep any?”

“He did,” she says, reaching into the pocket tied to the right side of her waist. “It would have been odd if he didn’t, considering. I freed them when he died. Does that bother you?” she asks, words clipped and face blank.

Both the boys are watching him, their eyes gone wide, as though something unpleasant and interesting might be ready to unfold before them, but he doesn’t hesitate to give his firm answer. “No.”

That Sansa, who was always soft-hearted and kind, wanted nothing to do with owning another human does not surprise him. But that she doesn’t have some kind of help, paid help, does bother him, for he can’t fathom how she manages alone.

“Tea then?” she asks again, all darkness banished from her tone and countenance. “Boys, take your cousin in to have a seat.” She reaches out to brush the sleeve of his jacket, pale fingers lingering against the green wool. “I’m afraid the fire has nearly died out. It might be chilly.”

“I’ll get it going again,” Jon says.

At least he can be of some service. He’s sure Bran and Rickon are a help to her, but they’re no true replacement for a husband or a manservant or two.

It isn’t just the amount of work to be done. Her father-in-law might believe them completely safe from rebel attack even here on the shoreline and at a distance from the main village, but Jon doesn’t. He would never assume their neighbors across the sound wouldn’t dare raid the island. Washington’s own troops might even someday be brought here. They are at war, and she is alone and it troubles him. Deeply enough that he considers covering her hand on his arm with his own and saying something. Until she draws it away and he is compelled to shake that thought off. He might be her cousin, but it isn’t his place to interfere.

“Rickon knows how,” she says, Rickon over-speaking her to affirm the same—“I know how.”

“I’m sure he does.” He pats Rickon’s back. “Show me your fire building skills, my boy.”

Following after them down the hallway towards the front room, Bran’s crutch thumps against the wide plank floors beneath the painted black and white floor-cloth. The floors beneath are new, showing no sign of wear. The house can’t be more than ten years old. Presumably built for Joffrey, when he came of age—how spoiled to receive something this grand without earning it by virtue of anything other than his birth.

It’s a formal style. High ceilings, paneled painted walls, big rooms, and a double door entrance, which must do well to catch the sea breeze on warm summer days. Turning his head as they pass the front room on the left before entering the one on the right, he can see both of them are graced with large fireplaces. All to great expense.

“He scorched Sansa’s carpet a fortnight ago,” Bran says, hopping up onto the northern windowsill and balancing his crutch alongside.

Jon can’t escape noticing the expansive carpet. Anyone would take note. Not necessarily the scorch mark, though he sees that now too, but the ingrain Scotch carpet itself—another sizable expense—is beyond anything you see in a typical home. Ruining something like that would get a young lad in a great deal of trouble.

Rickon crouches before the dying fireplace, loudly complaining without turning to face his brother. “You’re a tattle.”

“I didn’t have to, she spied it as soon as she walked into the room.”

Jon places his hat on the oval side table and moves to help Rickon with one of the logs in the sling beside the tall white mantelpiece, so nothing ends up scorched on his watch. He lets Rickon arrange the log on top, while he grabs for a poker with a quick look to the spot above the mantel. There’s a lone portrait—it’s Sansa in profile, though he doesn’t believe the artist has adequately captured the coppery shade of her hair or the bowed shape of her mouth—facing inwards. The space where a matching portrait, facing the other way, should be hung is blank. Joffrey’s portrait perhaps, although it is an odd thing to remove one’s dead husband’s portrait, especially when there is no new husband to take issue with a reminder of the last one.

Rickon peers up at him. “Sansa says you’re protecting us from the British.”

“The rebels,” Bran corrects.

Rickon scowls. “No, that can’t be right. We’re Patriots.”

“Sansa told you not to say that. We’re not,” Bran says solemnly, as Jon stirs the embers and adjusts the new log with a nudge of the poker.

The king might not be to blame for Ned Stark’s death, but those tasked with carrying out his justice are. It is the failing of men, rather than the failure of the empire. The distinction is a difficult one to remember, however, when he recalls the kindness his uncle always showed him. More so than his own father ever demonstrated.

Better to face the fire and stir the embers than get in the middle of this disagreement between the lads. If he speaks, he might say something he ought not to as the lieutenant colonel of the battalion. His passions sometimes get the best of him.

“We’re _not_ rebels,” Bran insists again. “We’re good loyal subjects of King George.”

“Are not!”

Rickon’s outburst forces Jon to speak, though his own feelings are still raw and disordered, whenever he thinks of his uncle sick and in misery on that ship. “It’s all right, Bran. There’s no need to dissemble or give assurances to me. I heard about everything, including your brother.”

That is what leadership means, he thinks, putting aside one’s personal feelings, so as to do the right thing and set the proper example. Even when you would like to howl at the night sky about the injustice of it all.

One of his men informed him of the particulars of Robb’s flight to join the Continental Army. That was a prime example of keeping himself in check, when what Jon wanted to do was shout, dress the man down. Jon didn’t like how keen he seemed to convey the information. He didn’t give him the satisfaction of showing that it caused him any distress, however.

The soldier’s name—Lancel Lannister—is noteworthy. Sansa’s husband's kin do not have her good interest at heart if they spread information about her family with such uninhibited glee.

“Not just Robb,” Rickon says, squinting an eye at one of Jon’s jacket’s polished buttons, which line his jacket in two neat rows. “What’s the green signify?”

“That he’s in the Brigade. Sansa told you that,” Bran says before Jon might answer.

Rickon shrugs. “Arya joined too. The _rebels_.”

“She did not. Girls can’t join the army,” Bran says, as they continue to bicker back and forth.

Rickon spins away, walking the Greek key design along the scorched border of the carpet as if balancing along a fence line. “Arya did, and when I’m big enough, I’m going to run away as well. I can shoot straight and I’d never tire of marching.”

“Everyone tires of marching,” Jon says. “Even lads with too much vigor for their sister’s peace of mind.” Satisfied with the condition of the fire, Jon replaces the poker amongst the fireplace tools. But not before he points it at Rickon long enough that he can be sure the boy has seen him. “You’re going to stay put and help her. That’s what your eager to march feet will do.”

Rickon’s nose wrinkles in distaste.

“It’s what your father would want,” Jon adds for good measure.

“He was a rebel too,” Rickon says, scuffing his shoe over the carpet.

Bran lets his head rest against the frame of the window, rolling his eyes liberally. “No, he wasn’t. You’ve got it all confused as usual.”

“Do not!”

Jon can tell from the frustration simmering between them that this is not the first time they’ve disagreed on this vital point.

Settling in one of the chairs facing the fire, both of which have seats covered in checked fabric to protect whatever is underneath, he says, “Bran is right. Now, tell me about your studies. Do you have a tutor? Some gangly youth with ink-stained fingers the pair of you torture?”

“Sansa teaches us,” Bran says, crossing his arms over his chest. “She’s smart enough to do it.”

“Quite right. You’re lucky to have such a smart teacher.”

Sansa was always good at her studies and more dedicated than the rest of them. However, it’s another burden to shoulder, tutoring the boys. Her portion of Joffrey’s estate must not have been much more than this house if she is forced to do so much all by herself.

“She’s strict too,” Rickon says, bobbling along his imaginary fence and then righting himself with a swooping loop of his arms.

“Your sister means to see you achieve your potential. You might train in the law some day at King’s College or for the pulpit if you properly stick to it. Make something of yourself.” Without the farm, they’d have to find some other line of work. That must weigh heavily on Sansa’s mind. “Since whatever you do, it won't be to run off to fight, following in Robb’s footsteps.”

“He was angry,” says a gently apologetic voice behind him, “when he left.”

Nearly stepping on his own feet, he hurries to stand upon Sansa’s entry, carrying a tray burdened with a teapot and cups. He notices her hair is tidier beneath her cap too, as if she removed it and rearranged the stray curls, while waiting for water to boil.

“Boys,” she says maneuvering between the chairs in a swish of petticoats, “you’ll excuse Jon and I. Outside with you.”

“I’ll be by again presently,” Jon promises, as Rickon gives a kick to the carpet, curling back its scorched edge.

Bran’s face conveys his corresponding unhappiness at being dismissed, but he makes less of a show of it, as he grabs for his crutch and follows his brother’s dramatic flounce from the room. As they disappear down the hall, Bran’s footfalls and crutch sounding in a slightly out of sync pattern grows more indistinct. That sound once could be heard all over the Stark farmhouse, as Bran moved from room to room, the same as Rickon’s shouts.

Jon extends a boot, smoothing down the carpet.

“Don’t mind him. He’s angry too,” Sansa says in a lowered voice, as Jon sits back down and snatches his hat off the table, so she might set the tea service down. “Though they are glad to see you. I am too,” she says, easing it down. “I hope you'll forgive us any of our oddities. We're alone here a great deal.”

He twists the hat round in his lap, fingers moving over the white ribbon edge, her words making him feel strangely twitchy. “There is nothing to forgive.”

“Half the time, I don’t know whether he truly forgets about Father or if he is being obstinate.”

“They’ve been through a great deal.”

“Yes,” she says, lifting the teapot and fixing him with a look, “but he shouldn’t have said we’re rebels. I heard him. His voice carries throughout the entire house.”

He frowns. Does she imagine that he thinks her a traitor? Or that he’s come to report on her? He was eager to come and it had nothing to do with assessing Sansa’s loyalty to the king.

Whatever Robb has done, he fully believes Sansa’s assertion that Ned was no rebel. There had to be some terrible misunderstanding there. And he can’t conceive of Sansa taking up political notions that would throw the family into peril.

“It’s all right, Sansa.”

She doesn’t look up from her task, face in profile like the portrait above the fire. Except, in person he can perfectly observe how her hair reflects the flicker from the fire and the rose of her lips. The painter most certainly did not do her justice.

The ringing sound of the tea filling his cup is the only cover for how loud his own breathing suddenly seems. He swallows—equally, awkwardly loudly—and steadies his hand with a firm grip on his knee.

“No, I’m afraid it isn’t all right, for our neighbors assume that we are, in spite of my protests,” she says, handing him his cup, carefully filled only so far, so as to avoid spillage, “and if he says foolish things out of turn, we could suffer for it. We already have, though it wasn’t Rickon to blame.”

“He’s just a boy. Allowances have to be made,” he says, rocking his hip bones on the seat, as he waits for Sansa to finish pouring her own cup.

“They grow up though,” she says with a sly kind of sideways glance at him.

“Yes. They already have somewhat. Bran especially.”

He stares down into his cup at the dark tea. The price of tea has become rather dear. It occurs to him that it wasn’t only the making of it but also the cost of her hospitality that might be a hardship. To refuse her offer, however, would have been difficult as well.

Sansa has always been social grace itself, but Jon sometimes finds himself at a loss. Particularly when it comes to women. In this case, it is ridiculous to struggle to be at ease, however, since it is _Sansa_.

Back straight, she lowers herself into the chair closest to him, her cup delicately poised in her fingers and the celadon green silk of her top petticoat crinkling. “Bran might end up as tall as you.”

He raises his to his mouth, testing the content’s temperature with a hum. “He’s all legs and arms.”

“Yes, and in spite of looking like a bean pole, he eats endless amounts, I can assure you. They keep me busy, cooking and mending their clothing, but I am glad for their company.”

“Were you—” Jon falters, trying to find the right words that might not cause her upset. “Were you here alone for very long?”

“No. It all happened in quick succession. Father and mother. Robb running off. Joffrey, of course,” she adds with a queer look. “I had very little time to ramble around this empty house, which is only still mine, because my mother-in-law can’t spread vile lies that we are rebels, for then _this_ house would be seized and she might lose it for good. She wants it back. Or doesn’t want me in it at least.”

“But it’s yours.”

“Yes, for now,” she says, adjusting the open skirt of her gown over the edge of the chair, drawing his gaze to where it gathers at her waist. “She is always scheming to take it from me. It’s my widow’s portion of Joffrey’s estate. Very little else. Certainly not his slaves. They ought to have gone back to the Lannisters, but I wasn’t going to stand for that.”

She was always such a strict follower of the rules as a child. Quick to report on their missteps too. It was the moral choice to make, freeing Joffrey’s slaves, but if it wasn’t legally her right to do so, Jon does wonder at her taking the chance. He’s not sure the girl he knew would have acted so boldly.

“Won’t she make trouble for you?”

“I have Mister Baelish. He is my lawyer, and he stands in her way as best he can, considering the law isn’t truly on my side.” She takes a noiseless sip, staring into the fire. “I had to do it. Joffrey had made them miserable, so I freed them as soon as he drew his last breath. They’re in York City with papers that look real enough. I acted impulsively, sending them off without proof, but Mister Baelish drew something up they could show slave catchers if need be. You won't say anything.”

“Of course not.”

He would never do anything to endanger her, and he has no interest in aiding in the return of anyone to a life of slavery.

“Since then, though, you’ve been maintaining this place all by yourself.”

The buttery yellow silk of Sansa's pointed heeled shoe extends beyond the hem of her petticoat to dance over the edge of the scorched carpet. “Don’t look too close at my housekeeping. Mother kept a tidier house by far.”

“She had help.”

“Well, to be fair, Arya hardly counted as help. She always preferred to be out running after you boys, didn’t she? Anyway, I manage.”

She taps the mark with her toe once more, pulling her leg back in, until her leg disappears from his sight. He blinks, fearing that he ought not to have been observing that movement so carefully.

But without the distraction of her crinkling skirts and white stockings, all he can think on is the import of his words.

“I didn’t mean to suggest you’re doing anything less than an admirable job, of course.”

“The boys help,” she says, ignoring his fumble. “They’re good boys.”

“Yes, you’re schooling them too,” he says, setting his cup back down on the tray with a jarring rattle.

He’s overcome by that same feeling from the hallway. A feeling that he must _do something_ , though what that is, he isn’t sure. He only knows with pressing certainty that he is uncomfortable with her situation. She is capable and has handled herself in a difficult position, but now that he is here, there should be some way he can secure an easier path for her.

“Bran does very well with his studies. I don’t mind that part at all. It’s all remarkably easy to bear compared to the way things were before.”

There’s something ominous about the way she says it, though her face betrays nothing, as she continues to watch the fire.

“Before what?”

“Before Joffrey died. He was a monster.”

Jon feels his pulse begin to pound. The man’s portrait has been pulled from the wall, leaving an odd asymmetry to the space about the mantel at odds with the design scheme of the room. Things are easier to bear with him dead, though in her widowhood she is left without much support. He made his slaves miserable. He was a monster.

Men who use their authority to bully their wives are cowards. Drunks quite often. They aren’t fit to be called men.

Jon did not offer his condolences, when Sansa turned up unexpectedly at his office. He thought better of it later, thinking he had been amiss in not saying something about the loss of her husband, after being taken aback by seeing her. But it seems as if condolences weren’t needed.

“Sansa—”

“He was cruel,” she says with stiff finality, turning to place her empty cup beside his on the silver tray with all the grace he lacked a moment earlier. “How have you fared, since last we parted?”

His fingers drum over his white woolen breeches, reluctant to move on without comment on what she has alluded to about her married life. “Well enough.”

“You prosper now. I’m glad to see it,” she says with real warmth in her voice.

But he can’t take heart in it, her soft look and round-eyed attention trained squarely on him. Not when his muscles feel tight and his gaze is ever pulled to that blank space above the mantel. Even quarrelsome, ill-tempered ancestors are left hung on the walls, until their faults are buffed mostly away by the passage of time. What occurred here that would lead her to drag a chair over to the mantel, so as to climb up and pull him down?

He winces, as an ugly image comes to his mind. As sheriff, he saw something once, which the family had attempted to hide.

“Sansa—”

“I appreciate your concern, but I can barely speak on it. The boys don’t know any of it. He’s gone and that’s the end of it.”

It’s just his ugly loud breathing again and a swallow that nearly chokes him, until he rubs his palm over his breeches and forces himself to speak through a tight jaw. “No one will harm you again. I swear it.”

The fire pops, part of the new log gives off a shower of light on the edge of his vision, and still, she watches him, unmoving.

“Father wouldn’t like you swearing an oath.”

In any given situation, he often thinks on what his uncle would want him to do. Though his uncle respected Jon’s choices, Jon knows that by putting on this uniform, he has already gone down a path that Ned Stark would have never followed. Not because his uncle was a traitor but because it went against his principles to fight. Robb has chosen differently as well.

Ned Stark was a man to admire and look up to, but they’re all human, all fallible, all with their own paths to carve.

“No, but I expect it’s still the right thing to do. We all have to do what we believe is right. Robb did what he felt he must too, I expect.”

“Yes, he did,” she says, folding her hands before the stomacher of her floral printed gown. “He was furious they put Father on that prison ship, and then he died and there was nothing else for Robb to do, I think. That’s why he ran off and joined, when he did.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” she asks, something plaintive and heartbreaking in her simple question.

“Yes.”

He’s thought on it a great deal, since learning of Robb’s decision. He can understand the emotion that must have driven Robb to act.

His uncle was already dead by the time he learned of his arrest. He’d never been given the chance to have to choose—king or family. If he’d witnessed the injustice, would he have been at Robb’s side, climbing in some rowboat to flee the island? Could he have resisted the urge to side with his family and seek revenge against those who did not act in good faith, though it meant treason to do so?

“I was angry with Robb, when he did it. They left us the farm after Father was arrested, but it was seized, when Robb left. I had to hurry as best I could to fetch the boys and Arya. If we didn’t have this house, we’d all be living in the hedgerows.”

Jon huffs against the tightness in his chest. “I’ll see what I can do about it. Whatever it takes to have the farm restored to Bran. He’s done nothing wrong. Surely that can be established.”

“You can try, and I’ll thank you for it, whether or not you succeed,” she says with a tilt of her head.

Even if Jon is successful, there is a difficulty: Bran can’t work a farm by himself with his injury. He’d need the help of his brother, who is still young. A brother-in-law, perhaps, who had no inheritance of his own, might make it feasible to run a farm as large as the Stark’s, but that would require Sansa to marry again.

That blank spot on the wall makes Jon think she is in no great rush to enter into another marriage, when the next man might as easily be as much a barbarian as the last one. She is alone here, but she is also safe from the terror inflicted by a husband. He better understands her choices now too.

And even if Arya was here, there would be no twisting her arm to marry for the good of the family either.

He clears his throat. “What’s this of Arya? Why isn’t she here with you?”

“She’s following the army. Laundry, cooking supposedly, but knowing her, I expect she’ll take a knife to her hair as soon as she can and try to fight too.”

“Robb won’t allow it.”

“I’m not sure they’re together. She ran off after Robb was long gone.” She lifts her hand to her lips, her fingertips just kissing the seam where they part. “Everyone on the whole island knows about Robb, about the farm. Half the village knows about Arya too. No one trusts me, Jon.”

“I do.”


	3. The Boatman's Eggs

Sansa steps lightly, picking her way over the dark rocks slick from the receding tide. Her bundle of folded uniforms tucked under her arm makes keeping her balance a challenge. A small rowboat pulled close in to the shoreline awaits their delivery. The boat rocks in the lapping waves, and the man inside betrays no sign of having spied her approach. Being unobservant is not a recommendation in their line of work, but he is not an ideal partner in this business.

He certainly does not spring from the boat to aid her descent or cut it short by hurrying out to meet her, as he has sometimes done in the past in sweetly intended gestures of gentlemanly behavior. Instead, with his head hung down, it almost looks as if he is asleep. He might be. Dontos Hollard is a drunkard, and while his intemperance sometimes brings tears to his eyes in weepy, drunken despondency, it also can leave him in a terrible stupor.

“Mister Hollard,” she calls out.

When he doesn’t rouse, she calls again, louder than is strictly proper, and this time, thankfully, he lifts his head. Shaking himself together, the white-bottomed boat rocks precipitously as he heaves his portly body balanced on stick-thin legs over the side, splashing into the knee-high water to make his way over to her.

“Morning, Mistress Lannister. You caught me catching a cat nap.”

“You’re well, I hope,” she says, bringing her bundle of red uniforms around from underneath her long cloak and holding them out for him.

“Don’t you mind me. Nothing a few winks won’t fix, mistress.”

“Good to hear, Mister Hollard. Freshly mended and washed,” she adds, giving the laundry a nod, as he gets his arms underneath the stack.

“The boys will certainly appreciate your efforts,” he says with a sloppy wink.

He is always trying to give some sign to her that he is in on the trick, which increases her unease. She is not by nature a person who seeks out risk, and yet, here she is. If she felt more confidence in her contacts, she might sleep better at night. She feels sorry for Mister Hollard and appreciates that he is trying, but she wishes very much that her safety didn’t rely on his abilities to act covertly. Her father didn’t belong on that prison ship and he certainly didn’t deserve to die, but if she was caught spying, she would hang for it.

What would happen to the boys? With Jon serving in the militia, he might be called off to another location at any time, and they would have no one to look after them and nowhere to live, since her house would be seized. She can’t cease her efforts on behalf of the rebels, not when the British took her father and Robb and Arya’s fates are tied to a Patriot victory, so the only thing to do is not be caught. She mustn’t be caught. Dontos Hollard mustn’t be caught.

Jon unknowingly provides her with information she passes along. His presence provides her with a screen to her activities as well, helping to recover her reputation. And while she worried that having him too close might pose a risk, she can already see that he is no threat to her. Jon is too happy to be home, too glad of the boys’ company. She thinks he is glad of hers too. He trusts her and does not view her with suspicion.

He ought to, of course, which is strangely painful, for she wishes there was no deception between them. She spends as many sleepless nights worrying about potentially being exposed as she does worrying how her actions endanger their newfound affection for each other. Worse yet, she might endanger his life as well. Even if he could be entrusted with the truth, even if being forthcoming with him might provide her with personal relief, she can’t risk it for fear he would be caught up in her scheme and pay for it with his life.

“You always fix these buttons on extra tight,” Mister Hollard says, giving the top of the stack a pat.

“I try. They’re always the first thing to come loose,” she says with a smile.

The uniforms are bound for York City. The city might be in the hands of the British, but not everyone in the city is a friend of them. Before these uniforms reach the troops, they will fall into the hands of another contact Sansa does not know by name, so as to keep each other safe in case of detection.

The paper on which she wrote her messages is folded small, small enough to be tucked inside the uniform buttons she sews onto the jackets. Between what Jon innocently has mentioned in passing and the gossip of the women gathered at the Tarly’s, she hopes it proves useful, more useful than what she’s given previously.

She has Jon to thank for both sources of information. It didn’t take much hinting for him to act on her behalf with the women. A comment when first they reunited that Meleesa and her daughters had not included her in their circle for some time and another about the general unfriendliness of the village and their loneliness, since Father’s arrest and Robb joining the rebels, and Jon must have gone to work immediately. Within days, Sansa received an invitation from Meleesa Tarly to join their sewing circle.

Jon’s concern for her happiness and his efforts on her behalf done unobtrusively, so as to receive no credit and give the appearance that the ladies desired her presence, is touching. She finds herself hating to take advantage of it.

And yet, she must.

Over embroidery and mending, the women dug and poked at her, trying to trick her into saying something that would justify their dislike. Sansa was stalwart, the epitome of a good little subject, a devoted cousin to the fine colonel of their very own battalion.

Meanwhile, they exposed more than they imagined. She took no pleasure in their company, for she knows they are false friends with two-faces, but she goes and learns as much as she can, same as she takes careful note of every shred of information she pulls from Jon or from what she observes in the village. She expects the invitation to the Tarly’s will stand for as long as Jon is billeted with them. It is an honor to have him at their home. They'll wish to ingratiate themselves to the colonel as best they can even if it means tolerating his cousin.

He made it plain that he welcomed her inclusion at her first appearance, wandering into their sewing circle with a look of surprise that was almost believable. It made her smile down at her embroidery, something which she has since given to him out of thanks. The attention he paid her, rather than Talla, was commented on by Talla’s younger sister. Margaery, Tommen Lannister’s wife, mentioned it later, when they met in the market and many of those people, who were glad of her notice previously, pretended not to see her.

Sansa’s response to their insinuations as to her cousin’s self-conscious efforts to make her feel welcome is always polite misunderstanding.

“You be careful with these uniforms,” she says not merely as a pleasantry but out of true concern for what will become of them after they leave her hands.

Dontos Hollard is not the courier she would have chosen. Nevertheless, Petyr selected him for the job. Granted, the pickings are slim, when most of the island is so assuredly Tory.

Even Petyr might turn if it suits him. There is no real conviction behind his efforts. He looks to make his fortune in this war, and while a Patriot victory is far from a sure thing, he stands to profit handily if he positions himself correctly. If the old establishment, which sides with the British, falls, new men will climb, and Sansa knows Petyr aims to be among their number. Moreover, by not openly siding with the Patriots, he might easily switch sides if it looks as though a British victory is at hand, and do so without hardly anyone being the wiser. Petyr is avaricious and calculating. He is not principled.

What would become of her should Petyr turn, she can’t say. He’s overly fond of her to be sure and might be counted on to include her in his plans, but she hates to trade on what he feels for her for fear she’ll end up trapped in her own net.

“I will, mistress. I’m always very careful,” Mister Hollard says with another lazy wink. “Oh!” he says, lifting a finger in the air. “I have something for you this time.”

“Do you?” she asks, as he sloshes back towards the boat.

She winces at the way he kicks up water. If somehow her papers get wet inside the buttons, the messages will be spoiled.

“Something heavy?” she asks, as he bends over the side of the boat.

If it’s too heavy, she’s concerned about climbing back over the wet rocks to get back up to dry land.

“No, mistress. Eggs.”

“Eggs?”

“Yes,” he says, pulling out a basket. “On my honor, I haven’t broken one of them.”

It’s brisk down here by the shore and she wishes she had her muff and not just her mitts, for her bare fingers are cold. She couldn’t manage the laundry, while wearing her it, so her heavy cloak is all she has to shield against the salty breeze. She pulls the edges around herself.

“Now, there was a message that came with these,” he says, pushing back through the water towards her. He stops, basket hanging from his arm, and looks down. “What was it?”

He makes a sound, his thinking sound, and Sansa fights the urge to sigh.

“You’ll want to cook these,” he finally says, as he unwinds his arm from the handle of the basket and transfers it into her hands.

The eggs are uncovered and she picks up one of the browner ones. Twisting it between her fingers, she gives it a shake and frowns.

“This is hardboiled, Mister Hollard.” She puts the egg back and from the sound it makes against its neighbors, she suspects they all are cooked. “Are you sure you have the message right?”

He reaches up to scratch his cheek with a grubby finger. “Hardboiled, mistress?”

“Yes. Already cooked.”

“Then you think I’ve got it wrong?”

She tucks the basket under her arm and tugs her cloak around to cover it. “Possibly. It would be difficult to cook them more than they are already.”

“You’re right, you’re right, mistress. Let me think.” He scratches again, pondering with a squint of his red eyes. “Warm up, the gentleman said, I believe.”

“Warm up?”

“Yes. Be sure to warm them up in their shells. I recalled it just now as cook, since that’s how I would have phrased it myself.”

“Excellent,” she says, though she doesn’t know what to make of the instructions and she can’t be certain that was the actual original message.

This close, even with the aroma of fish and salt strong on the air, she can smell the gin on him, which throws all of it into question. There’s no reason to belabor the point with him, considering, so without another look towards the uniforms she hopes find their way into the right hands, she bids him goodbye. Picking her way back over the rocks, she climbs up to the dry land, where the pebbles and sand give way to turf.

Reaching the top of the rise, the wind whips her woolen cloak to the side and she reaches up to hold her wide brimmed, shallow straw hat to her head. Though it is tied beneath the back of her hair with a ribbon, it feels as if both the hat and her cap might be pulled right off by a strong gust. Hand firmly clamped to her head, she tucks her chin down to walk towards the house, pressing through the wind.

It’s only because she has her head tilted down that she doesn’t see her immediately. When she does chance a look up, the wind whistling in her ears, Cersei Lannister is unmistakable against the white of the house in her red cloak and golden gown. Just the sight of her is almost enough to make Sansa turn on her heels, climb back down the beach, call out to Dontos, and clamber inside his rowboat to go where it takes them.

Her mother-in-law’s arrival never heralds anything good, and as always, her timing is impeccable. Pressing her lips together to steel her nerves, Sansa reminds herself that she must have come up from the lane, from the backside of the property. The shore drops away enough that it would have been difficult for Cersei to see what Sansa was about in the cove below.

She has not been discovered. Not entirely.

Cersei is always full of threats made both openly and inferred. Today will be no different. As Sansa approaches her, Cersei’s cloak billowing like a slash of blood against the grey October sky, she can see by the flat line of her cherry lips that she has come prepared for battle.

Sansa has sometimes wondered whether Cersei alters her appearance with artificial enhancements, the way some wealthy women do in York City or Philadelphia or on the Continent. Carmine red for her lips or beet juice, rice powder for her skin, belladonna drops for the eyes—there are any number of tricks available to preserve or improve upon beauty. It would be a shocking thing if she did, here where the Congregationalists predominate with their stiff morality. Cersei is an attractive woman, there is no doubt. Sansa once thought her the most beautiful woman of her acquaintance, but knowing her better has made her ugly in Sansa’s eyes.

“Good morning,” Sansa says, bobbing a curtsy her mother-in-law does not bother to return as though they are not of the same social standing. Swallowing the slight, she forces a smile. “What brings you out this way so early?”

“I have business with you, Sansa, and your ill-behaved brothers ran off, when I arrived. They ought to have seen me in and not left me standing in this gale.”

She looks to the windows to see whether the boys are watching them from inside the house, but catches no sight of them. Wherever they have gone off to, they have made themselves scarce.

She’ll have to thank them later for not letting the lioness into their den. She doesn't intend on doing so either, so she wraps one hand around the wrist supporting her basket and smiles vacantly.

“That is passing strange. Perhaps they didn’t see you.”

Cersei arches one fine brow, darkened beyond that of her golden hair. That Sansa would almost swear the woman does with artifice.

“Oh, I assure you they saw me, but your mother taught them no manners.”

The insult to her deceased mother makes Sansa draw sharp breath through her nose, as Cersei’s cat-like eyes fix over Sansa’s shoulder at something in the distance. “What were you doing by the shore?”

“By the shore?” Sansa asks, twisting to follow her line of sight as though she has nearly forgotten what she was about.

She is foolish, simple, sweet but helpless around her husband’s relations. It is a carefully crafted façade.

“You came up from the shoreline. Not on some walk,” she says with a nod to the basket beneath Sansa's cloak.

False realization dawns on Sansa’s face in a slow bloom. “Yes, this is the day each month I take laundry and mending to be picked up by the boatman.”

Untruths are better when served alongside truth.

Cersei’s lips curl. “You’re doing laundry and mending? What, for pay?”

“For trade.”

“Well, isn’t that sad,” she says, green eyes twinkling at evidence of Sansa’s reduced circumstances.

It ought to shame her as the widow’s mother-in-law, not delight, but Cersei is cruel like Joffrey. She would have happily seen Sansa left without any source of income, no home, impoverished entirely. With both mother and son, attractive faces hide ugliness underneath.

“Trade in what?” Cersei asks, leaning towards Sansa’s half-exposed basket.

There is no disguising the contents, though the answer is necessarily a bad one. No one would do a month’s worth of laundry and mending for soldiers for a measly basket of eggs.

“Eggs,” she says, adjusting her cloak once more around the basket.

She feels protective of them, wary of letting her get too good a look. There is something about these eggs, some message concealed, and it is up to Sansa to uncover it and protect it from prying eyes.

“Don’t you have chickens?”

Sansa eyes Cersei’s muff. If she were less warmly dressed, she might be less interested in enquiring about Sansa’s household. Then again, the lace tucker she wears about the neckline of her gown conceals very little. Her mother-in-law is proud of her figure. If she is suffering in the cold for it, Sansa is glad.

“Yes, but they haven’t been laying and we can’t do without, I’m afraid. Needs must.”

“Chickens that don’t lay? Sounds like poor management on your part.”

Cersei Lannister doesn’t know the last thing about chickens, cows, gardens, or standing over a stove. It’s infuriating, but it’s better Cersei believe her to be worthless than suspicious about her dealings with a boatman headed for York City.

“Regardless of your pitiful situation, Sansa, that’s a terrible trade. Whoever the mending is for has had the best of it. Think how many hours you must have spent plying a needle.”

“We needed eggs.”

Cersei sneers. “My son didn’t marry you for your good sense, did he?”

“No. My beauty, I expect,” Sansa retorts, knowing full well it will anger her.

“Vain girl,” she hisses. “You won’t always be young and beautiful. It’s a shame the pox didn’t ruin your face to teach you some humility.”

“Yes, Mother.”

 _Mother_ —she won’t like that either.

It’s unwise to taunt the Lannister matriarch, but sometimes Sansa has difficulty burying her rage, which she has in spades but must keep hidden. She used to say things to Joffrey too, things which would cause him to explode, and while she knew she’d pay for it, she did it all the same.

Cersei practically growls in irritation before rearranging her beautiful-ugly face into a mask of disinterest that only proves how interested she really is in what Sansa has been about this morning.

“Who was the boatman, my dear?” she asks, and the question alone makes Sansa’s stomach flip. “Perhaps Mister Lannister can find you a better trading partner, someone who will treat you more fairly, so my son’s widow doesn’t need to debase herself quite so much.”

“I can do without Mister Lannister’s help, thank you.”

Jaime Lannister has never been outwardly cruel to Sansa, but she knows he is firmly in his wife’s grip and will do her bidding without question. There is more than marriage between them. They were kin before they wed, first cousins on his father, the magistrate's side. Cersei did not trade her old name for a new.

There is something to that, Sansa thinks, now that she has suffered marriage to a veritable stranger chosen for all the wrong reasons.

“It’s the way you’re managing, Sansa. One can’t be too careful, considering you have rebel relations. I’ve come to warn you.”

 _Threaten more like_.

“How kind.”

“One hears so often your name and Mister Baelish’s paired together. It’s become quite the topic in the village.”

“I try not to engage in gossip.”

Cersei looks down her nose at Sansa, making the most of the slight advantage in height she has. “Neither do I, but concerned friends bring me news. You being such a young widow, they know I wish to look after you. I have reports of the regular comings and goings from my son’s house.”

 _Reports_.

Sansa isn’t the only spy in the neighborhood. The knowledge that she’s being watched by busybody women would be unnerving under any circumstances. Given what she’s actually doing here, it sends a shiver of fear up her spine.

The unease she felt upon seeing Cersei doubles and she fights the urge to wrap an arm around her middle protectively.

“ _My_ house, Mistress Lannister. My widow’s portion.”

Cersei steps in closer, her nostrils thinning. “Because you let him die.”

Sansa holds her ground, chin tipping up. She can stand up to this accusation, the old well-worn one, because it isn’t true. She did her best, though she hated him by the time he died.

“Never. I loved my husband. I was a good and dutiful wife to him.”

“Yes, I’m sure you were. The picture of propriety. It was a sham then and now. Only, you must take care, Sansa, or I will be forced to drive you from this house. I won't have my family's name impugned.”

“I am not without protection.”

“Mister Baelish,” she says with a taunting smile. “And your cousin too?” she says, voice dripping with venom. “He’s always here as well. I’ve heard all about it, I assure you. What is his name?”

Sansa ought to be bothered by the allusion to her and Jon as evidence of her supposed impropriety, but it is Cersei feigning unfamiliarity with Jon that irks her. His status is earned, while hers is not, and yet, she would deny him it.

“You know him, Mistress Lannister. Lieutenant Colonel Snow,” she says, over-emphasizing each portion of his title.

“How convenient. I see what you’re about there.”

“He’s tasked with defending your precious estate from the rebels,” she bites back, genuinely insulted that anyone would not appreciate Jon, though she herself is working against him.

“And what do you task him with here? Hmm? Getting your hens to lay?”

She shifts on the dying grass, breast rising and falling too quick. “Colonel Snow is my closest kin and I am most grateful for him. I have had very little real help since coming to this village, as you are intimately aware.”

She is grateful. She is overcome with gratefulness that he has been restored to her that makes her feel queer sometimes when they are alone. He makes the boys laugh, when they have been so very sad, offers to chop wood for her, seeing where she needs help without having to be asked, and keeps her company, when she is lonely for someone with whom she can be herself unguarded. She is herself with him, in a way that is dangerous, for it makes her want to reveal everything.

That is the one thing she can’t do.

“You will ruin your reputation worse than it’s already been tarnished thanks to your traitorous family. I won’t be able to protect you then.”

Sansa shakes her head back and forth, seething inwardly at Cersei’s self-delusion or nerve. “What a shame that would be, when you so kindly protected me from what you well knew went on here while your son yet lived.”

She knows Cersei knew what Joffrey was and how he treated her. Out of everyone, Cersei saw the evidence and knew the real cause.

“I won’t have you speak ill of my Joffrey.”

“And I won’t take up anymore of your time, Mistress Lannister,” she says, giving Cersei wide clearance, as she maneuvers around her to climb the front steps.

“I’m not finished,” she says, lurching to grab her arm, which is precisely why Sansa moved in such a wide arc around her.

“I am,” she says, twisting to avoid her long reach. “Now, you’ll excuse me.”

Her pattens echo on the steps. Hurrying too quickly, the basket swings precipitously. She forces herself to slow to preserve the eggs, as she reaches the top stairs.

Cersei has an explosive temper, but she has some dignity. She will not run after her. Surely.

She wishes she had a dog to bark and frighten her dreadful witch of a mother-in-law away.

She wrenches open the door and slips through. Leaning heavily against the door, it closes with a thud, and she heaves a heavy exhalation. Her heart beats fast and loud in her ears.

If when Cersei arrived she had wandered to the edge of the ridge above the shore...

She calls out for the boys. There is no answer and no movement in the house. She is alone in the silence. They must be out in the back.

Back pressed into the paneled door, her eyes slip closed.

Knowing they’ll have schoolwork awaiting them, when they find their way back inside, they will no doubt absent themselves until she bothers to search for them.

That’s for the best. She needs some privacy.

She has eggs to warm.


End file.
